And now it is time to at the Sunday Wildcard games but before that there’s this week’s trivia question to deal with.

‘Firstly and with 2 points on offer I want to know

The 2017/18’s Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year played for which teams?

Secondly and again for 2 points:

What was significant about the 2015/16 Wildcard Weekend?’

Now, the first question I think is slightly sneaky as I believe both players were on the New Orleans Saints, namely Alvin Kamara and Marshon Lattimore.

The second is trickier and I’m torn between two things, either this was the last time that a team with a losing record made the playoffs, or and this is the one I’m going for, this was the last time that a road team won wildcard game. I’m sure both of these are wrong but I can’t think anything else so I have a nasty feeling I’m going to kick myself when the answer is revealed.

‘This week’s trivia is keeping me occupied and my mind off the state of the names linked with the Dolphins HC position!

First question was about last year’s Rookies of the Year, and I believe they were both from the New Orleans Saints – I know offensively it was Alvin Kamara and while I can’t think who the defensive rookie was, I’m fairly sure they were also a Saint.

The second question is a bit tougher. I’ve looked at the results and I’m still struggling. I don’t think it’s the first time any of the teams made it to the playoffs, and I don’t think there’s anything significant about the dates or anything like that. The only think I notice is that all of the road teams won which I would have thought is pretty rare… was it the first time that had happened? I’ll go with that.’

LA Charger (5th) @ Baltimore Ravens (4th)

The Ravens are yet another example of your season being defined by how you finish a season rather than how you start it, although they were at least competitive all year. However, after a 3-1 start the Ravens fell to 4-5 before the bye and had lost against all three of their division opponents. However, with an injury to Joe Flacco’s hip they put Lamar Jackson into the starting line-up and went 6-1 in the second half of the season. It has to be said that the reason they were competitive all year was that their defence was right up there for best in the league all season, and it was their offensive woes that were causing them problems after some initial promise. However, when they placed rookie quarterback Jackson into the line-up, they started running the ball so much that the combination of time of procession and their defence enabled them beat everyone but the Chiefs after their bye, including the Chargers. The commitment to the running game did not mean that they were lining up with 21 personnel and running up the middle, but rather the Ravens made use of the pistol and multiple tight-ends to take advantage of Jackson’s skill running the ball, which also opened up the game for their running backs. How sustainable this is in the long term I don’t know, but it makes them a scary proposition in this game.

The Chargers may be the fifth seed, but they actually have a better record at 12-4 than the Ravens and have been a force all year. Their slightly slow start can be attributed to facing both the Chiefs and Rams in their opening four games but the only team with a losing record they lost to all year was their division rivals the Broncos. Otherwise, despite missing Joey Bosa for half the season on defence they won and kept winning thanks to strong performances on both sides of the ball, in fact they finished third in the league on offence by DVOA and eighth in defence. If there is a worry, it is that they have been banged up at running back through the latter half of the season and they lost to the Ravens two weeks ago. In fact, the Chargers had real problems picking up a linebacker defensive-tackle stunt in that game, which overcame Philip Rivers’ usual ability to counter poor offensive line play by being quick to get rid of the ball.

So how does this game look to shape up? Well, this time the Chargers have to travel across the country to face the Ravens but given their lack of home field advantage in their temporary home in LA this might not be the disadvantage you might think. You also have to believe that the Chargers will figure something out to stop the particular protection issue they had in their last game. The Chargers have the players on offence to function against a good Ravens defence and if the Ravens blitz as much as they did late against the Browns last week in a close game, then I can see Philip Rivers making much smarter plays to get rid of the ball. This is a game where if the Chargers can get up early they can cause the Ravens real problems by getting them out of their time of procession and defence game plan. I think it will be a tough game and I can definitely see the Chargers winning it, but with their ability to play in more than one way and the experience of Rivers at quarterback I give the Chargers a slight edge.

Philadelphia Eagles (6th) @ Chicago Bears (3rd)

The Bears are the turnaround story of the season having gone 12-4 after going 5-11 the previous year. Matt Nagy has been able to come in and improve the offence, although I was surprised that their offensive DVOA was only twentieth in the league, although that is still better than the twenty-eight they were last season. Yet when combined with the league’s best defence by DVOA the formula has been more than enough for the Bears to win. It helped that Nagy was secure enough when he came in to keep Vic Fangio on as defensive coordinator, who has continued his development of the defence and the addition of Khalil Mack via trade at the start of the season augmented an already strong defence and was in of itself transformative.

The Eagles on the other hand, have very much had a season of Super Bowl hangover and injury, which meant that they required a late surge and results to go their way even get into the playoffs. In fact they almost have to thank the very team they face this evening as if the Bears had not beaten the Vikings in their last game of the regular season then the Eagles win against Washington would have been meaningless. Both the Eagles’ offensive and defensive DVOAs are very average, and whilst the defence has struggled with injuries, particularly in the secondary, the offence has struggled with an absence of players who can stretch the field and a running game that has lacked consistency since Jay Ajayi was lost for the season to a torn ACL. It should be mentioned that Fletcher Cox has had a remarkable year as part of reduced but still strong defensive line, while on offence tight-end Zac Ertz has been the stand out player on offence. However, as is often the way, the big story of the Eagles’ season is at quarterback. Carson Wentz led the team for most of last season only to go down with a knee injury late in the season, which saw Nick Foles come in and lead the Eagles all the way to a Super Bowl title. However, Foles started the season 1-1 before Wentz came back in and went 5-6 and things started to look bleak for the Super Bowl Champions when it was revealed that Wentz had a stress fracture in his back. Now, last year’s run was remarkable enough for Nick Foles, who not so long ago was at home contemplating retirement, yet now he is an Super Bowl MVP and he went 3-0 at the end of the season to get the Eagles into the playoffs and here they are travelling to face the Bears.

The Bears are surprisingly strong favourites, with the line often being quoted as the Bears giving six and a half points to the Eagles, which looks strong to me. I think this will be an fascinating matchup and given the injuries I would give the edge to the Bears but if I was picking against the line I’d lean Eagles given their recent form and the fact the Bears have been limiting what they ask Mitchell Trubisky to do, and anytime you have to specifically game plan to limit your quarterback’s mistakes then you are at a slight disadvantage and I would not put it pas the Eagles to be able to take advantage.

With the new season only days away I thought I would take you through a whistle-stop tour of the league starting with an AFC preview and I’ll give the NFC teams their own post before the Philadelphia Eagle and Atlanta Falcons get things under way on Thursday.

I don’t particularly like making predictions as there are too many variables and injury luck is can be such a huge part of team success so I’ll be breaking the divisions up into favourites, competitive, and likely to struggle as I work my way round the division compass so without further ado let’s make a start on the .

AFC North

Much as it is painful for a Bengals fan to say it, the favourite to take the AFC North division is still the Pittsburgh Steelers. They may have questions at linebacker thanks to Ryan Shazier’s injury, but the defence still finished top ten last year by DVOA in and the options in their offence are still terrifying. Time is ticking for Ben Roethlisberger but as long as he doesn’t suffer a dramatic fall off then this is going to be one of the teams of the conference who should have their eyes on the Super Bowl.

The AFC North is always a tough division, and even when the Browns are struggling they are often a tough out, but not so much under Hue Jackson. However, with a defence that has looked good in pre-season and the additions of Jarvis Landy and Tyrod Taylor as well as new offensive co-ordinator Toddy Haley it at least feels like the infrastructure for success is more solid. In a position to let rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield develop and not rush him I think the Browns will be more competitive than last season, but whether their ill-discipline (they got penalised a lot in pre-season) will allow them to win games I don’t know. I think we’ll know a lot more about this team by the end of the first four games.

The Baltimore Ravens are another team who are perennially competitive but had to do it with defence and special teams last year. With a kicker like Justin Tucker you can mask a lot of deficiencies in offence but the thing the Ravens coaches might be most happy about having drafted Lamar Jackson this year is the fire it seems to have lit under long time quarterback Joe Flacco. He may also have been helped by better receiving options and being healthy in the offseason for the first time in two years but if the Ravens’ Super Bowl winning play caller can lead the offensive to a better ranking than twenty-first by DVOA the Ravens will be right in contention for the playoffs again.

I’ve written a fair amount about the Cincinnati Bengals this pre-season and it is telling that neither of the offensive tackles two years that they drafted to prepare for a transition of talent have worked out whilst Andrew Whitworth looked great for the LA Rams last year. With new playbooks on both sides of the ball there have been a lot of changes to coaching and the roster. Whilst the Bengals have another young team there seemed to be a lot to like and if the O-line gels, then Andy Dalton should have a much easier time finding his myriad of skill players. I’m not pencilling them into the playoffs, but I’m not ruling it out and I wasn’t sure that would be the case when it was announced the Marvin Lewis was coming back.

AFC East

Is this the year that the New England Patriots falter? For the first time Tom Brady was not ever present through the off-season, their first round offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn ruptured his Achillies after they let starting left tackle Nate Solder leave in free-agency, and this was a team that went to the Super Bowl with a defence ranked thirty-first in the league by DVOA so they can ill afford an offensive wobble. I think we’re all at the point where we’ll believe Tom Brady is done when he has signed his retirement papers, but what will help them is that none of the rest of the division are exactly standing up as challengers at the moment and so the Patriots look to be favourites still. This could finally change though.

The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs for the first time in eighteen attempts last seasons, but they responded to this by cutting the quarterback that got them there, not signing the linebacker that led the league in tackles and trading their left tackle to the Bengals in the draft manoeuvres required to get their quarterback of the future. Have traded away AJ McCarron they have opted to go with rookie Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman as their QBs, but whilst Peterman has looked good in pre-season and Allen has flashed, the Bengals defensive line had a field day against Buffalo’s o-line and it could be a very long season for whoever starts. I was impressed with everything Sean McDermott did last season bar benching Tyrod Taylor but I don’t think this season’s roster is better than last years and I have a nasty feeling they will struggle for a lot of the season.

If you trade away your best offensive and defensive players for chemistry reasons, you had better have an awful lot of talent coming in and I’m not sure that Miami Dolphins do. I thought they had a good draft and I would say Adam Gase is a good coach but I’m not at all sure of the roster construction and this feels like the latest in a long series of make or break seasons for Ryan Tannehill. I believe that Gase can keep the locker room together and make them competitive but it would not surprise me if they fall into a difficult season. Nothing would make me happier than to be proved wrong, if only to cheer Dan through the season.

Finally we have the New York Jets, and I though Todd Bowles did an excellent job of coaching with a lack of talent on the roster last season and not sure many other coaches would have got as many wins. The most ready of the rookie quarterbacks fell into their laps in the draft and Sam Darnold looked good enough in pre-season that the Jets traded Teddy Bridgewater to the New Orleans Saints. I think it will take another or season or two to turn things round and I don’t know if Bowles will get the chance to complete the job, but I can see the Jets equalling their record of last season. There will be ups and downs with a rookie quarterback but the real question for this season is have the Jets finally got a franchise QB. Everything else after that can wait.

AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued to build their defence, stuck with Blake Bortles and their big free agent signing was a offensive guard. I thought that Bortles might have learnt a thing or two in last season’s playoff run but with the exodus at receiver and the injury to Marqise Lee this team will be as reliant as ever on their defence and the run game. The good news is that the defence will be no less scary and they should rightly be considered the favourites for this division.

The Houston Texans may have only won four games last season, but they revealed they could have a bright future as long as the young quarterback Deshaun Watson can recover his blistering form from last season before his knee injury. With the defence hoping a number of players stay healthy, including JJ Watt this could be really good team even if the offensive line looks to be a big problem. There are a lot of ifs there so whilst the Texans will start out competitively, how long they will remain so is the big question.

The Tennessee Titans ground their way into the playoffs with a run first offence and a defence that ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA. This was not enough to save Mike Mularkey his job and there rookie head coach Mike Vraebel is hoping that Matt LaFleur can revitalise the offence and fourth year quarterback Marcus Mariota. The coaches with links to Bill Belichick have not necessary flourished as head coaches and Vraebel has limited experience as the man with ultimate responsibility so I am very curious to see how he goes. The honest answer is I’m not sure so this is one of the teams we’ll need to follow closely through the start of the season.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled mightily with Andrew Luck being out injured but this also laid bare the problems with the rest of the roster and whilst there are signs that things are improving in the second year of Chris Ballard’s rebuild, a lot will depend on Andrew Lucks surgically repaired and extensively rehabbed shoulder. The good news is that he’s back to starting but new head coach Frank Reich will be hoping that he can get enough from his franchise quarterback that the season can be a success, but I have a feeling that being competitive would qualify as just that and would be a good place to start.

AFC South

The Kansas City Chiefs won the division last year and I have too much faith in Andy Reid to see this team as anything other than competitive and I would place them as favourites to win the division. That is despite trading Alex Smith to Washington to promote Patrick Mahomes as the starter after a season where the young quarterback sat on the bench. Mahomes has the arms to make use of the myriad of skills players the Chiefs can use in their offence that has borrowed liberally from college, whilst their defence was only ranked thirtieth by DVOA last year when they won the division. It wouldn’t take much to improve that ranking and with the potential of their offence the Chiefs could be one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

The other potential favourite in this division could be the LA Chargers but it would require them to get out of their own way and they couldn’t quite manage that last season. The abiding image of Philip Rivers for me these days is a player somehow functioning as an effective quarterback despite minimal protection from his line. The defence was just outside of the top ten with a fearsome pass rush led by Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa and they should be competitive again this season. The problem is that they have a nasty habit of losing close games and their ‘home’ games in LA were frequently more like home games for the opposition thanks to fan turnout. I’d like to think they can improve but I’m not willing to just outright declare it, although I’d be very willing to be proved wrong again.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with the currently Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. The big move of the off-season would have been luring Jon Gruden out of the commentary booth nine years after he last coached except they have just traded Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league, to the Chicago Bears. The reasoning is that the Mack’s contract demands were just too big, and the Bears wasted no time in signing Mack to a six year deal with $90 million guaranteed days after Aaron Donald signed a contract with $87 million guaranteed. The difference between the three franchises is that the Rams still have a young quarterback on their rookie contract as does the Bears, whilst the Raiders have already signed Derek Carr to a five year extension. The issue is that Gruden has been out of the league for a while, even if he was staying plugged into the NFL through his media gig, and the defence his brother Jay Gruden [I appear to have gone made, too many ex-Bengal coordinators involved as it is in fact Paul Guenther who is the new defensive coordinator – Ed.] takes over was ranked twenty-ninth by DVOA with Khalil Mack. I’m really not sure what to expect out of the Raiders this year, and whilst I can see the salary cap argument to an extent (I don’t study it hard, maybe that’s a task for next off-season) the Mack trade amongst others does nothing to help the Raiders now and I think this club will be in for a very interesting time this year.

Last year’s AFC West strugglers the Denver Broncos will be hoping that the addition of Case Keenum at quarterback will be enough of an upgrade to the offence to give the still competitive if retooled defence a chance of winning games. In the one game I saw them this preseason the offensive line still looked to be a problem but after a good pre-season from Chad Kelly, the Paxton Lynch development plan has finally been shelved. It is way too soon to question a GM who has won a Super Bowl and given his history as franchise quarterback you would think that the job is John Elway’s as long as he wants it. However, whilst he’s made a number of sharp moves in free-agency, his record in the draft is a bit patchier and his choice of Vance Joseph as head coach didn’t exactly yield the early returns that Elway would have hoped for. Still, if either Keenum or Kelly can make the offence competitive then the Broncos will be a team no one will want to face, especially at home and that could be enough for them to be in the playoff race come December.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Browns at Ravens game on coaching tape, but it was a curious one in that it was the offences and the personnel/formations that caught my eye on coaching tape, and only a few stand out plays caught my eyes on defence, mostly by the Ravens.

The Ravens’ offence was not impressive in the passing game, but had a field day running against the Browns defence. Initially they weren’t too impressive out of obvious running formations, but were able to get things out of 11 personnel early on in the game, and as it wore on were able to run consistently well in 12 personnel. Joe Flacco was able to get seventy-eight passing yards to Kamr Aikens, but forty-eight of those yards came on one play, and he was only able to hit him four times out of nine attempts, missing several deep strikes where Aikens had generated separation. They only gave up one sack, but the Browns were only rushing four on that play, and linebacker Armonty Bryant was able to get matched up with Justin Forsett and push him back into Flacco and get the sack.

There was not a lot that grabbed my attention from the Browns defence, the Ravens struggled to move the ball against them, but as I said, Flacco missed several deep balls that were available to Kamar Aikens. However, they bottled up the rest of the Ravens receivers, but that was the only good thing that could be said. The only other note I have about the Browns defence is a pass that was well deflected by linebacker Nate Orchard, but you can see why they are ranked as lowly as they are.

However, the Browns offence does seem to be coming together nicely. They moved the ball okay in the first half, but were only able to finish it with three field goals. However, they did establish that 11 personnel in various formations was their most effective way of moving the ball, and move the ball they did totally over five hundred yards, and Josh McCown throwing for over four hundred and fifty yards. His leading receiver was tight end Gary Barnidge who was lining up all round the formation, and ended the game with eight catches from ten targets for one hundred and thirty-nine yards and a touchdown, whilst Travis Benjamin caught six balls of twelve targets for eighty-three yards. However, the Browns also had Taylor Gabriel chip in seventy-five yards including the Browns’ longest play of fifty-six yards and Andrew Hawkins also gave them fifty yards from the slot. The passing game was what won them the game, as they were not able to rely on the run although Isaiah Crowell was able to maintain a reasonable yards per carry average, but the Ravens were solid against the run despite the rest of their defensive problems.

The Ravens defence gave up over five hundred yards in this game, and could not cope with the Browns passing game. The coverage after the game was that once they lost Elvis Doomervil, the Ravens were unable to generate a pass rush, but they did in fact manage to get four sacks and a further six quarterback hits, but they had to manufacture this by blitzing, and even on one play made it look like they were sending six before a linebacker dropped back into coverage. Their front seven was sold against the run, and tackle Brandon Williams was a handful all game logging a sack, tackle for a lost, and a quarterback hit, whilst frequently getting penetration and disrupting the browns. However, they could not cover the Browns well enough and it is telling that the only coverage note I made was a play where Jimmy Smith had tight coverage on a deep ball, but he was also second on the team for tackles behind linebacker Daryl Smith and didn’t have any passes deflected.

The Browns look like they have the offence to give a lot of teams trouble, even if they are ranked twenty-seventh in rush DVOA, the passing game is what has got them to their 2-3 record, and we will have to see how far it will get them.

The Ravens front seven is not getting enough pressure with a straight rush to give their back end a chance of covering, which meant they got gashed in the passing game, and this could be an ongoing problem. If they can get Steve Smith Senior back on offence, then things will pick up on that side of the ball in the pass game, but this is a team with flaws on the outside of both sides of the ball, and so far this has cost them. They do not look like your average 1-4 team, but their defence could have issues all season.